In Win Allure Review

Two dozen red roses, Godiva chocolates—phooey! Any self-respecting geek knows that these time-tested gifts are mere temporary charms. What could show how much you really care better than a crystal-encrusted desktop-PC case adorned with flowers, custom-built for your significant other? If your answer is "Nothing!" then you need to get In Win's Allure, and get building. This enclosure is one-of-a-kind on the outside, and solid, if unspectacular, on the inside.

The striking exterior is the Allure's primary selling point; the interior design is functionally identical to In Win's $75 Alpha 360 case of 2006 vintage. Still available, the Alpha 360 is a minitower model that accepts MicroATX motherboards only; measuring 14.25x7.5x18.5 inches, the Allure shares these traits. The lean manual—which, with our test unit, actually was the one for the Alpha 360—comes stashed in a fancifully produced sleeve that resembles a wedding invitation, with an ostensible endearment on the front: "You are a thief and a vandal, for you have not only stolen my heart but also tattooed it..." The satiny sleeve fits into the packing material at the top of the box and is the first thing you see when you unpack the case—a nice touch if you're actually giving the Allure as a gift.

The motif of the case itself matches that of the sleeve. The all-plastic exterior, backed by a steel frame, has an off-white finish with a pearly sheen, adorned with matte lavender flowers. The flowers are embellished with tiny Swarovski crystals (approximately 65 of them, each about a millimeter across), which, according to In Win, were affixed to the case by hand. We fretted that brushing against the case would knock the crystals off, but they resisted rough handling, and even fingernails prying them off. Though not embedded in the case plastic, they seem superglued or epoxied on. (Nonetheless, you get a few spare crystals inside the "wedding invitation"—along with, curiously, an In Win bookmark.)

The top half of the Allure's front face comprises a door that hides the two 5.25-inch and two 3.5-inch external drive bays. Gently press the door's lower portion, and it springs up on a pair of arms, swiveling 90 degrees onto the top of the case to expose the drives. On our test model, the door didn't rise completely, resting slightly slantwise atop the case—we had to nudge it each time to get it to lay flat. The opening action, too, was sudden, not smooth.

Around the back is an unusual cable-control scheme that, unlike most, actually reduces cable clutter in an aesthetically pleasing manner. The entire case back is covered by a rounded, perforated shield similar in shape to the front bezel; it has three removable panels that allow cable egress from the appropriate areas (power supply, I/O plate, PCI-card region). If you don't remove the panels, it's still possible to route your cables out from the very bottom of the shield, provided they're long enough. (In Win bundles a power-supply cable with a right-angle connector to facilitate this.) Leaving the panels in place streamlines the look of the case, but in practice you'll probably have to remove one or more of them. Many monitor connectors, for example, will stick out too far to reside behind the appropriate panel. Also, a minor quibble: You have to remove the entire rear shield to access the button that unlocks the case's side panel. (And in turn, to remove the case's front panel, you have to open the side panel and pull a sliding lock inside.)

Inside the case, the vibe is a mix of staid and innovative. There's no fussing with little brass standoffs to mount the motherboard; because the case accepts only MicroATX boards, In Win integrated the standoffs into the case bottom as small mounds of metal. This should speed motherboard installation. The expansion-slot backplane accepts up to four PCI cards and is equipped with a plastic locking clip that secures or releases all cards; traditional screw-mounting is also an option.

Drive installation is a mix of tool-free and screw-in methods. Optical drives fix into their bays with the help of yellow-plastic plungers (two per drive); the plungers insert rods into the drive's screw holes to hold it in place. The hard drive cage below, which can hold two drives, swivels outward for easy access. You have to screw in your drives, however, and there's no antivibration mounting. Nor does In Win provide a space to mount an intake fan in front of the drives.

Indeed, there's only one case fan in the enclosure, a rear-mounted 92mm model that's worth replacing with a quiet-rated model such as Zalman's ZM-F2. The single fan is understandable in a compact case like this, however; CPU airflow is funneled through a removable plastic duct that ventilates through perforations in the left side panel. You'll need to use a stock AMD or Intel CPU cooler if you want to use the duct; it won't fit over nonstandard coolers.

The front-panel connectivity mix is mostly standard: two USB 2.0, one FireWire, and headphone and mic jacks. The only anomalies are that the power switch isn't accompanied by a reset button, and that In Win provides an uncommon item: a built-in infrared receiver that works with motherboards that have a compatible jumper.

Our test build was uneventful; fitting in an Asus P5GC-MX MicroATX motherboard was no problem, along with a stock Intel cooler, a Philips DVD burner, a 500-watt Cooler Master power supply, an ATI Radeon X1650 Pro graphics card, and a Hitachi IDE hard drive. Our only proviso is that when installing the motherboard and CPU, you'll need to lay the case flat on something soft because of the crystals protruding from the right side. Otherwise, you'll scratch your table or damage the Allure's finish.

Overall, the Allure is a well-designed case with no deal-killing flaws and killer niche appeal. Our only concern is price: At around $110, you're paying a $35 premium over the In Win Alpha 360 strictly for the finish and crystals. That's undeniably costly for a mostly plastic, MicroATX-only case with an undistinguished feature set. But that said, it's impossible to put a price on love.